Chapter Twenty-Four
One hour and twenty-six minutes left on shift.
Brody could do this. Nights used to be his thing but after being home and sleeping next to Drew, he was rethinking his stance.
Granted, Drew was working the night shift tonight, too.
He’d done his time on nights; maybe it was time for him to see about a permanent day slot.
Something to think about. Or maybe talk it over with Drew?
They were going to be in a car together for at least sixteen hours, one way, driving Smokey to his furever home and then back.
“Brooke Medical, this is EMS ten, med four. Brooke Medical, EMS ten,” a voice came through the radio.
Shit. Brody was really hoping for a… Q last hour and a half.
Yup, he wasn’t even thinking the “Q” word.
Maybe this call was someone who really wasn’t sick but thought they’d get a bed quicker coming by ambulance.
Brody stepped over to the radio station and hit the ‘incoming call’ button. “This is Brooke, go ahead EMS ten.” He grabbed the stool with his foot and plopped down, picking up a pen to take down the vitals on the log sheet.
“Inbound with a twenty-year-old male. Found unconscious behind the Exxon on West. Patient shows multiple wounds. Chest sounds are decreased and crackling. Latest BP eighty over fifty. Pulse forty-five. O-two sating at seventy-eight on four liters of oxygen. We’ve got a twenty-gauge established in the right forearm.
We should be at your location in seven minutes.
Any questions or orders?” the paramedic asked.
Fuck. Why they were bringing the patient this far with UT Medical closer, he wasn’t sure, but they were going to take the best care of the patient they could. Brody looked at the patient’s stats. “What’s the pain scale? Did you get a blood glucose?”
“Glucose of one-fifteen. Patient hasn’t regained consciousness.” Double fuck.
“Okay, EMS ten. We await your arrival,” Brody said ending the call.
He took a deep breath and then stood. Looking around he saw Talia in the corner on her phone.
Yup, they had all been taking the lull. “Talia, find me Doctor Joyce and then meet me in trauma bay one. We’ve got at least a level two coming in, maybe even a one.
EMS is about five minutes out. We’re going to need several sets of hands and Randy needs to be prepped. ”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Randy’s voice came from behind Brody. He turned and Captain Randy Joyce was standing there with a donut in one hand, coffee cup in the other. Guess Talia didn’t need to find the doctor for him.
“EMS ten is on the way in with a twenty-year-old male…” Brody rattled off the report from the radio as he led Randy into the trauma bay.
He pulled out the crash cart and broke the seal.
If they didn’t need more than half of the supplies, he’d eat his stethoscope.
The look on Randy’s face when Brody glanced at the doctor made him pause.
“Randy, are you going to be able to handle this? Do we need to see who’s on for surgery or neuro to help?
” Please Lord Baby Jesus let Randy snap out of this.
Brody knew that this was his first shift as attending but Randy had come from Walter Reed.
Yeah, it wasn’t a Level One Trauma Center but he had to have seen enough.
As Brody watched, Randy pulled himself together.
“Okay, let’s get prepped for the worst. Let’s get ready to have blood hung, we’ll probably need both surgery and neuro on stand-by.
Get Talia…” Randy paused and Brody could tell he was trying to remember something or someone.
“Devon and Paula gloved up. Have Paula take notes on everything.”
“Ambulance at the door. Ambulance at the door,” Dave’s voice came over the paging system.
“Let’s go,” Randy said, leading Brody this time, both of them snapping gloves in place. Brody tapped his thigh, checking for his trauma shears as he followed to the doors.
“Devon, Paula. Hands on deck. Paula, you’re on notation,” Brody called out as he broke into a jog to catch up to Randy.
“Status,” Randy commanded as he started his examination.
Talia moved to the bottom of the gurney and guided the crew toward the trauma bay.
Brody began his own exam. The patient was on the smaller side, jeans ripped at the knees, blood saturated at the hips.
The shirt was a goner, torn to the point that Brody was sure the only reason it was still on him was it was stuck with fluids and blood to his body.
“Okay, team. On three.” Brody and Devon were on one side, Randy and Talia on the opposite.
They each grabbed some sheet and prepared to lift.
Randy did the countdown and smooth as silk, the patient was on the hospital bed.
“Let’s get the standard labs drawn. Add a tox panel.
Make sure that nothing we do will fight with anything in his system.
Brody, start a second IV.” Randy looked to the EMS crew and asked, “It would’ve been faster to take the patient to UT Medical. Why did you drive him here?”
“He’s wearing a set of dog tags. Figured it would be better to bring him here than have him transferred later,” the paramedic said.
Brody looked up from the tubing he’d been prepping.
The patient’s face was a mass of blood and broken skin.
His hair was matted to his head. Brody reached for the man’s neck and pulled out the chain from his shirt.
Reading the tag, Brody thought his knees were giving away. MORAN JARED.
“Fuck! Someone call Cap! He’s coming on shift. He needs to be here ten minutes ago,” Brody commanded.
“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” Randy asked, a steely tone coming through.
“It’s Jared,” Brody whispered; the room faded as he collapsed.
§ § § §
Thirty-two minutes and Drew was off shift.
He’d done the overnight for Jennings. Brody was working so it wasn’t like he had someone to cuddle with.
Okay, he was sure that Smokey would’ve made himself comfortable next to Drew but…
not the same thing. He’d gotten used to listening to Brody breath as he drifted to sleep.
The phone ringing next to Drew’s arm made him groan. Thirty-fucking-minutes. Why?
“Lieutenant Nolan,” Drew said as he put the receiver to his ear.
“Sir, this is Brooke Medical. Could you please send a cruiser to the emergency room to take a report?” a man asked. Drew looked at the call board. All his teams were finishing up shift and he wasn’t the asshole officer to make one of them stay over.
Taking one for the team, Drew blew out a breath and said, “I’ll be there within ten.
” Was it his job to take a report? Nope, but his family had taught him that there wasn’t any task that he was too good to do.
He could’ve ordered one of the sergeants, but Brooke was on the way to Brody’s.
Drew would take the report, then type it up when he got to Brody’s and email it to Steve.
Technically, he’d be on leave when his shift ended but they weren’t heading to Kentucky until the following afternoon. Brody had one more shift to work.
Drew grabbed his laptop bag, beret, and travel mug. He walked to the sergeant’s desk. “Okay, I’m heading over to Brooke to take a report then head home. If Spano has any questions, have him call my cell.”
“You got it, Lieutenant. You’re on leave for the next ten days, right?” Sergeant Carlos asked, not even looking up from his computer. Drew didn’t know what he was typing away at but dang, the man could type fast.
“I am. Taking Smokey to his furever home with my uncles.” Drew was really proud that he’d made that happen for Smokey and his uncles.
“Lucky dog. You travel safe. See you next week.” Carlos hadn’t even broken speed as he talked.
It wasn’t long before Drew was pulling into the emergency room lot.
Making sure he had his field notebook with him, he grabbed his beret and walked in.
A feeling of déjà vu came over him as he stopped at the window.
Drew looked around and the waiting room didn’t look overly crowded. Yay for Brody and his team.
“How can I help you, Lieutenant?” the young woman asked from behind the glass.
“Someone called the station for us to send an officer to take a report.” Drew shrugged.
“Dave said they called for an MP. Didn’t realize officers were doing grunt work,” she muttered.
“Taking a statement isn’t grunt work,” Drew snapped. He wasn’t going to let this woman degrade anything his soldiers did.
She had the sense to look ashamed. Good. “Sorry, Lieutenant. I didn’t mean it the way it came out. I just didn’t realize that officers did some of the legwork. Come on through the door. I’ll have Devon meet you.”
Drew stepped into the controlled chaos he remembered from last time.
A pretty woman in navy scrubs approached him, already talking.
“Hello, I’m Devon. We’ve got the officers from SAPD in back triage for you to talk with.
They were first on the scene. We collected the patient’s clothing in a separate bag for evidence. ”
“Lieutenant Drew Nolan,” Drew replied, following the woman. He almost knocked her over when she stopped abruptly. Before he could mumble an apology, she was speaking again.
“Wait. Drew Nolan? Like, Brody’s Drew?” she asked. Shit, how was he supposed to answer? He wasn’t sure how out Brody was at work.
“Yes,” he confirmed tentatively. Please let Brody not kill him for this. He knew that Brody didn’t like to be the center of attention.
Devon turned and started in a different direction. Assuming he was supposed to follow, Drew double-timed to catch up. She stopped at a curtain, leaned around it then pulled back. “You should stop here first. When you’re done, just wave and one of us will take you to back triage.”
Not knowing what was behind the curtain, Drew straightened his shoulders and pushed it aside.
Brody was lying on the gurney with an ice pack on his forehead.
The shock of seeing Brody lying there smacked him as if he’d been hit by a baseball bat on the back of the head and that was a feeling he knew intimately thanks to them all trying to teach Julia to hit a softball when he was ten.
He stumbled over to the bedside and took Brody’s hand.
Brody’s eyes fluttered open and he groaned. “Totally not what I had planned when we both got off shift today,” Brody said, causing Drew to snort.
“If you feel up to anything when we get home, my body is yours to do with what as you wish. Were you attacked? Is that why the MPs were called?” Drew had thought working as a nurse was a safe job when not deployed but with the stories that had been in the news about nurses being shot for not saving patients, he wasn’t sure he’d be surprised.
Drew watched as one sole tear rolled down Brody’s face. Fuck. “Are you in pain? Let me get som—”
“It was Jared,” Brody said, cutting him off. “Jared was left behind a gas station, beaten and bloody. I—”
It was Drew’s turn to cut off Brody. Drew felt like ice was running down his spine.
Everything had been handled, so retribution shouldn’t have been possible.
Provo had been convicted in civilian and UCMJ courts.
Provo should be serving time somewhere. Something shuttered in Drew.
He couldn’t help it; his first thought was he’d missed something somewhere, fucked it up, and Jared was paying the price.
“Jared was attacked?” Brody nodded. Drew took a steading breath.
“Okay, let me call command and get in touch with the investigators from AFSFC. Am I one-hundred percent sure that this is related to his previous attack? No, but I’m not taking any chances on something going wrong if it is.
” He wasn’t going to fuck this up again.